My life took an unexpected turn awhile ago (~2004)...into a dojo! I took my son to karate and found that I didn't much like being a spectator. I started at age 46. By 50, I was wearing a black belt. At 52, I added a 2nd stripe. The blog was started to help me learn my kata. On my 55th birthday, due to hip problems, I sadly quit the martial arts. I continue to look for sports outlets and wrestle with food, fitness, and health.

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Scenario Training - What are we talking about?

The Google martial arts group that I'm following is having a discussion of scenario-training pros & cons in terms of too much too soon? I'm trying to contribute but I am a little handicapped in that I'm not sure what scenario training is. It's not a term that we use in my dojo. Here's what we do...

In class last night, we did a set of hold & grab exercises. For my group (the intermediates went through a different routine): we paired off and in I-go-You-go we attacked and defended each other as follows:

Warm-ups

1- single wrist grab, double wrist grab, cross-over wrist grab

2 - single lapel, double lapel grab

3 - front choke, side choke, read choke two types (both hands on neck, one arm around neck, the other behind)

Then we received a little instruction with demos on:

- when you are pulling someone forward with one hand behind the neck, be sure to keep your elbow in and down so that you preven them from being able to head butt or punch you. (Note the picture has the hand and elbow on the opposite side than the way we conventionally work but it's the only one that I could find)

- when you take them to the ground with a knee in the ribs and controlling one hand, be sure to keep your head up and back straight, otherwise you are easily punched or pulled over. Also, if you are going into an arm bar from there, stay really tight with your legs over him are pulled in and your body (butt is in tight). Also, careful with how/where you hold the arm. Otherwise, it's too easy to have an accident and break the arm accidentally in training.

Then we practiced as instructed (I really don't have the arm bar yet and until my back loosens up, I'm not going to want to go to the mat enough to practice it) and had I-go-you-go with about a dozen random holds and grabs on each other. We picked up the intensity and speed while shifting from one to the other.

Spotlight - Then, since next week is testing, those that are ready for belt promotion lined up in front of the class (we call it spotlight).. They picked blackbelts to be oukis. For the brown belts, they demoed their releases from three different choke holds (they knew what was coming). For the reds, same thing but all wrist grabs. Then, for the black belt candidates, they got eight arbitrary holds and grabs in front of the class. Last, the two candidates got two ouikis each (in front and behind) who did eight rapid random holds and grabs.

There was some hesitancy. I took the brown belt aside after class and asked her to pay more attention to holding and controlling her attacker. While her blows were fierce, her holding (both locking in the hand on the lapel grab and later when she grabbed my head from behind), her grip and control were weak.

Is this closely-related to scenario training or is that an order of magnitude different than these types of drills?